Perhaps, French President Jacques Chirac summed up Mother
Teresa's legacy best when he said after her death: "This evening,
there is less love, less compassion, less light in the world."

Mother Teresa - August 26, 1910 - September 5, 1997

Angel of mercy, Mother Teresa, served God among the poorest of poor for 50
years. Many saw the Nobel Prize winner as a "living saint". On her
death on September 5, 1997, Prime Minister of India, I. K. Gujral
expressed sorrow over Mother Teresa "attaining her place in
heaven". He said, "We in India are fortunate that the Mother chose to
make Calcutta the base for her world-wide mission of mercy and
compassion."

The Song, In Jesus' Name, was written by M. McCawley.
He wrote this song the week after the Death of Mother Teresa in her Honor.

An in-depth biography of Mother Teresa is found below, however, if you wish to read only the highlights of her life, simply CLICK HERE.

Her Biography

Born "Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu" on August 26, 1910; baptized August 27 in Skopje, Macedonia. Her
family belongs to the Albanian community. They were Catholic, though the majority of the Albanians are
Muslim there. The Turkish Empire was ruling the country. Her father was a businessman. He owned a building company and was connected to a food shop. He travelled quite a bit, was multi-lingual and very interested in politics. He was a member of the community council. He taught Agnes her first lessons in charity, together with Drana, his wife and Agnes' mother.

Totally unexpected, when Agnes was 9, her father died. It
was 1919 and Drana had to raise her three children, Aga
(1904), Lazar (1907) and Agnes (1910) alone. To
foresee in their needs she sew wedding dresses, made
embroidery and worked hard. In spite of all this, she made
time for the education of her children. They prayed every
evening, went to church every day, prayed the rosary
every day in may and assisted the service for the Holy
Virgin. A great and warm attention went also to the poor
and needy who came to knock at the door. During the
holidays a stay in the pilgrimage place of Letnice, where
Our Lady was venerated, was a custom for the family.
Agnes liked to be in church, she liked to read and to pray
and to sing. Here mother also took care of an alcoholistic
women in the neighbourhood. She went to wash and feed
her twice a day and she also took care of a widow with 6
children. When Drana could not go, Agnes went to do this
charitable work. And when the widow died, the children
were raised in the house as if they were family. Lazar won
a scholarship in Austria, Aga followed commercial school
and Agnes went to the Lyceum. She studied well.
Together with Aga she was in the Choir, she was a
soprano, Aga second voice. She also played the mandolin.

The call

A great part of their time also went to the Legion of Mary. She helped a father, who had difficulties with
the language, to teach catechism and read a lot about Slovenian and Croatian missionaries in India. At
twelve she felt for the first time the desire to spend her life for Gods' work, to give it to Him and to let Him
decide. But how could she be sure?
She prayed a lot over it and talked about it with her sister and her mother. And also the father to whom
she confessed she asked: "How can I be sure?" He answered: "through your JOY. If you feel really happy
by the idea that God might call you to serve Him, Him and your neighbour, then this is the evidence that
you have a call." And he added: "the deep inner joy that you feel is the compass that indicates your
direction in life".
At 18 it is the day! The decision was made. The last two years she assisted several religious retreats in
Letnice and it was clear to her that she would be a missionary for India.

On Assumption day in 1928 she
went to Letnice to pray for Our Lady's blessing before leaving. She was going to join the Sisters of Our
Lady of Loreto, who were very active in India.
September 25 she leaves, accompanied to the station by the whole community: friends, schoolmates,
neighbours, young and old and of course her mother and her sister Aga (who will be later a translator and
a radio speakerin). And everybody weeps. (Mainly from the book: "A life: Mother Teresa, Lush Gjergi,
Albania).
She travels over Zagreb, to Austria, Switzerland, France to London and then to the abbey close to Dublin
where the mother house of the Loreto Sisters is. Gonxha learns to speak English and is trained in religious
life. She receives the clothes of a sister and chooses the name of Sister Teresa, in memory of the Little
Teresa of Lisieux, where they stopped on the way to London. In the mean time her papers get ready and
1928 on december the 1st the crossing to India starts: the country of her dreams. It is a long and tiring
journey. Some more sisters are on board but the main group is anglican. For weeks they cannot attend
mass or receive communion. Not on Christmas either. But they make a crib, pray the rosary and sing
Christmas songs.

In the beginning of 1929 they reach Colombo, then Madras and finally Calcutta. The journey continues to
Darjeeling, at the feet of the Himalayas, where the young sister will accomplish her training. On may 23,
1929 she is accepted as a novice and two years later she makes her first vows. Immediately after that she
is send to Bengali to help the sisters in the little hospital with the care for sick, starving and helpless
mothers. She is touched by the endless misery which is there.

Sister and teacher

She went to Calcutta to study to become a teacher. Whenever she can she helps in the care for the sick.
When her study is finished, she is named to be teacher and has to cross the city every day. The first work
was to clean the classroom. Quickly the children learned to love her for her enthusiasm and her tenderness
and their number raised to three hundred. In another part of the city there were one hundred little students.
She saw where they lived and what they ate. For her care and her love, they soon called her "ma".
Sundays, whenever there was time, she went to visit the families in the little town.

On May 24 in 1937 she made her final vows in Darjeeling. She is named headmaster of a secondary
school for middle class Bengali girls in the center of Calcutta. She was their teacher for history and
geography for some time. Close to the institute is one of the great slums of Calcutta. Sister Teresa cannot
close her eyes: who cares for this poor living in the streets? The great charity that speaks through her
mothers letters, reminds her of the basic call: to care for the poor.
The Legion of Mary is also active in this school. With the girls, Sister Teresa goes regularly to the
hospitals, the slums, the poor. They do not only pray. They talk seriously about what they see and what
they do. The Belgian Walloon Jesuit, Father Henry, who was the spiritual director, was a great inspiration
in this work. He will direct Sister Teresa for years. Under his inspiration the desire grows to do more for
the poor, but how?

The second call

With all this in her head she leaves for retreat to Darjeeling on the 10th of September. "The most important
journey of my life" she said afterwards. It was then that she really heard Gods' voice. His message was
clear: she had to leave the convent to help the poorest of the poor and to live with them. "It was an order,
a duty, an absolute certainty. I knew what to do, but I did not know how". The 10th of september is so
important in the Society that this day is called "Inspiration day".

Sister Teresa prayed, talked with some other sisters, asked her superior, who sent her to see the
archbishop of Calcutta, Mgr. Perrier. She explained to him her vocation, but he refused her the
permission. He talked it over with father Henry, who knew Sister Teresa well. They considered thoroughly
the problems: India was about to be independent and Sister Teresa was a European! What were the
political and other dangers? Would Rome approve this decision? The bishop told Sister Teresa to pray
over this decision for at least a year or to join the Daughters of Saint Anna, sisters wearing a dark blue sari
and working among the the poor. Sister Teresa did not consider this the right response for her. She
wanted to live among the poor.

When after a year Sister Teresa renewed her intention, the archbishop wanted to grant her the permission
but decided it would be better to ask the permission from Rome and from the mother general in Dublin.
This decision took a long time.

Decision

In August 1948 she received the permission to leave the Loreto community under the condition to keep the
vows of poverty, purity and obedience. She is 38 when she says goodbye to her sisters and religious
Loreto robe, to change it for a cheap white and blue sari. First she goes to Patna to follow a nursing
training with the sisters there. It is obvious to her that she can only help the poor in their dirty, sickening
habitation if she herself knows how to prevent and cure. This medical training is indispensable for the
fulfilment of her new call.

The superior in Patna, a doctor, gives her good advice when Sister Teresa talks about how she wants to
live among the poor and how she wishes to care for them. When Sister Teresa says that she wants to live
on rice and salt, like the poor, the superior answers that this would be the best way to hinder herself in
following her call: this kind of life demands a strong and good health.

Back in Calcutta, Sister Teresa goes in the slums and the streets, to talk with the poor, to help them. All
she has is a piece of soap and five roepies. She helps to wash the babies, to clean the wounds. The poor
people are astonished: Who is this european lady in that poor sari? She speaks fluently Bengali! And she
helps them wash, clean and care! Soon she starts to teach the poor children how to read and write, how
to wash and to have some hygiene. Later it will be possible to hire a small place to make a school.
She herself sleeps with the Sisters of the Poor. God is her great refuge for strength and material support.
And He is: always she finds the right medicine, clothes, food and a place to receive the poor to be able to
help them. At noon children receive a cup of milk and a piece of soap, when they come regularly, but they
also hear about God, who is love and who - contrarily to their obvious reality - loves them, really loves
them.

A touching moment

One day a Bengalise girl, from a well-off family and former student of Sister Teresa, wants to stay with
Sister Teresa and help her. This is a touching moment. But Sister Teresa is realistic: she speaks about the
full poverty, about all the disagreeable aspects of the work which is hers. She proposes the girl to wait
some time.
The 19th of March 1949 the girl comes back with no jewels and in a poor dress. The decision was made.
She was the first to join Sister Teresa and took her girls' name: Agnes. Other girls follow: in may they were
three, in november five, next year seven. And Sister Teresa prayed fervently for more vocations to the
Lord and to Our Lady.

There was a lot of work. The sisters raised early in the morning, prayed a long
time, had adoration and attended mass to find in their spiritual life the strength to do the material work in
the service of the poor. Thank God, a certain Mister Gomes offered the top floor of his house to Sister
Teresa for her first community. In this year also Sister Teresa takes the Indian nationality.
Sister Teresa sees the community grow and knows she can think seriously about starting a congregation.

For the first constitutions she asks the advice of two from her first helpers: Father Julien Henry S.J. and
Father Celest Van Exem S.J. The last reading was done by father P. De Gheldere. The "Constitutions of
the Society of the Missionaries of Charity" could be presented to the archbishop, who would send them
for approval to Rome.
Early in autumn the papal approval arrived and 7th of October 1950, feast of the Holy Rosary, the
foundation was celebrated in the chapel of the sisters. The archbishop celebrated mass and father Van
Exem read the foundation papers. That moment there were 12 sisters. Every year hundreds of sisters over
the world celebrate on the feast day of Our Lady of the Rosary the foundation of the Congregation. Not
even five years after this day the congregation became papal, this means that they depend straight from the
pope.

It is basic in the Rule of the Society that the sisters, out of love for Jesus, devote themselves out of their
free will, to the service of the poorest of the poor and this is as a fact, their fourth vow. This is their way to
live and spread the gospel and work for the salvation and the sanctification of the poor.

The mission

While the number of poor and sick that asked for help was increasing, the admiration for the free devotion
of the sisters was growing as well. Find a suitable house to accept the increasing number of sisters was a
real necessity. After a novena to Saint Cecilia the solution came: a muslim leaving town to Pakistan sold his
big house for a cheap price and this became the famous Mother house, Lower Circular Road 54A.

The postulants first came from Bengaly, then from all over India and finally from all over the world. The
foundress herself was novice mistress. For the spiritual training she asked one of the fathers, but for the
matters of the house and the Community, it was clear, this was not his responsibility. She did not want an
interference from outside in the inside matters.
The first confession father was father Edward Le Joly S.J. Like the other Jesuits he was from Belgian origin.
He had a good contact and a good co-working and wrote some of the first and most respected books
about Mother Teresa and her Missionaries of Charity.

The succession

While the society grew in work and number Mother kept praying for vocations and the work kept
growing. Houses were opening and some closing down from one day to another for one or another
political, social or security reason. The society is very much alive and moving. Mother Teresa went all over
the world to help people, rescue children, advise her sisters; to organize and to talk. More and more she
was asked to address words to a group of sometimes 'ordinary' sometimes very exquisite crowds. In spite
of the fact that her message is often the same, can be captured in few sentences and that she certainly has
many times a quite "traditional" point of view, she is listened to carefully. In spite of her age she continues
to search means to help the poor people all over the world and she helps with the means she has. In every
continent, even in Russia her sisters are present in their service to the lost, for the love of Jesus. In 1992 by
the election of the New Superior general, she is prepared to hand over the responsibility. But she is
re-elected. When in 1996 her health starts to fail seriously, due to her heart getting worn out by love and
action she expresses the wish not to continue. On March 13th 1997 the assembly of sisters elect Sister
Nirmala to continue the beautiful work, for the love of Jesus.

On September 5th 1997, in the evening around 9:30 P.M., Mother Teresa goes to Heaven from the Mother
House in Calcutta. Totally finished and worn out, as she had given herself totally, wholeheartedly, freely
and unconditionally to the service of the poorest of the poor, and for the love of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

*** *** *** *** *** *** ***

This page, in honor of the Legacy of Mother Teresa, is also dedicated to the Loving Memory of the Following People:

* Dorothy Fiorino (Mother)

* Patrick E. Fiorino (Brother)

* Lorraine M. Ormsby (Aunt)

* James E. Hagerty (Father-in-Law)

* Barbara Skorupski (Sister-in-Law)

* Henrietta Schlueter (Grandmother-in-Law)

* Diane B. Opalka (Sister of a Friend)

* Angelina Fiorino (Grandmother)

* Dominick Fiorino (Grandfather)

* Henrietta Bourdin (Grandmother)

* Eugene Bourdin (Grandfather)

* John Fiorino (Uncle)

* Vera Nichilo (Aunt)

* Rocco Nichilo (Uncle)

* Frank Travelli (Father of a Friend)

* James J. Bacigal (Friend)

Prayers for those among us!!

Please Pray for the people named below. They are Near and Dear to my Heart. These people are associated with the Catholic School that my 3 children attend. These are all very fine people that go out of their way to help people whenever help is needed. I am happy and proud to be associated with these people. I feel in my heart that God loves me so very much that he brought these people into my life to share friendship and goodwill.